All Of The While It Was You
by longforlovers
Summary: After the Rachel fiasco, Kurt & Blaine's friendship is still in pieces and they both spend time brooding in their little coffee shop, the Lima Bean.


They'd visited that little coffee shop too many times for Kurt to count on two hands. So it was no wonder that the mere fragrance of coffee made his thoughts snap to Blaine.

It had been two weeks and 3 days since Blaine had 'recovered' from his sexuality experimentation and kissed Rachel Berry in the queue of their little coffee shop. It had been two weeks and three days since they'd properly spoken, after Blaine had encountered Kurt in the spot where he had left Rachel in order to visit the restroom. It had been two weeks and three days since they had been in this little coffee shop together at the same time.

And now this place just felt tainted.

They'd had their first argument at the table that Kurt was currently sitting at, index finger absent mindedly tracing the word 'COURAGE' onto the grain of the wooden surface. The coffee cup that rested by his left hand remained untouched, steam no longer escaping through the little hole in the lid. Stone cold. And Kurt just carried on tracing that single word, over and over in a trance-like way. C. O. U. R. A. G. E. C. O. U. R...

The coffee shop slowly emptied around him throughout the morning and afternoon, the other customers slowly rising to continue their days, their errands, their lives. And Kurt just sat at his and Blaine's table, tracing those letters, not realising that maybe he should follow the leads of the others around him. He was watching the lives of others pass by around him and not just their's but his _own_. He had to face the facts that his and Blaine's friendship had taken a turn for the worse after that argument and was severely damaged. Possibly beyond repair...

Across the café, hidden from Kurt's uninterested eyes, sat Blaine, curled up on one of the comfy chairs in the corner, notepad in his lap. He'd noticed Kurt when he'd entered but (thankfully for him?) Kurt hadn't torn his eyes from the surface of that table to acknowledge his presence. Blaine knew that that was the table that he and Kurt regularly sat at and had aimed to sit there like he had done on his own for the past couple of weeks before noticing the figure already slumped over it. Blaine understood that the dark circles etched underneath Kurt's beautiful eyes were his doing. The boy sat with such... emotionlessness upon his features, earning Blaine another stab of guilt to the gut. Yes, they had both said things that were uncalled for but the Karofsky comment was way below the belt... but it wasn't Blaine's fault that he was confused and that he needed a chance to clear the confusion and Kurt just didn't _understand_ that. It wasn't his fault that Blaine was Kurt's role model... but it wasn't Kurt's fault that he was either. And it wasn't Kurt's fault that he had feelings for Blaine... and it _was_ Blaine's fault for hurting the younger boy's feelings... ugh.

So there Blaine sat curled up in the corner, knees to his chest, notepad pressed between them. He'd spent the last few hours trying to write poetry, a story, a song, a simple _letter_ that showed Kurt how he felt, the guilt that continuously stabbed him in the gut to remind him that hello, Mr. Conscience isn't happy with the mistakes that were made and how sorry he was for letting Rachel Berry get between them both. But slowly the notepad got thinner, the pile of crumpled up paper and discarded coffee cups grew higher and the sky outside steadily darkened until the street lamps flickered on. Written words couldn't truly describe how he felt but Blaine wasn't the type to come outright and say it to someone's face with spoken ones. The Jeremiah thing was a fiasco because once again, Blaine couldn't do spoken words and used his voice instead. And his heart. And look at how well that all turned out... He made sure to glance over at Kurt now again to make sure he hadn't left before he'd had the chance to pluck up the courage but Kurt didn't budge in the slightest, eyes glazed over as if he were lost in his own little world... like when Alice had fallen down the rabbit hole into Wonderland.

Kurt felt like he couldn't go home. The game was on and he knew that the house would be full of excitement from just his dad and Finn alone and he couldn't face the positive vibes reverberating throughout the household. Another hour and a half until the shop's closing time would do... the trickle of customers was thinning even more until only a few other punters littered the circular tables and lounged upon the sofas, warming their hands and throats on steaming mugs of coffee. Kurt gazed around absent mindedly, barely registering what he was looking at before going back to his own thoughts... To him, this was all his fault. This 'him and Blaine avoiding each other in the corridors and in classes and during Warbler practice' situation. Fine, he was solid about his sexuality, set in stone. But he should have understood that it wasn't like that with Blaine... but how was he supposed to know how much of a confused child Blaine was underneath that false bravado? But Blaine had opened up to him, been truthful... and he'd shot him down...

"Excuse me."  
Kurt flinched at the voice from above him, eyes darting up into the face of the gentle, motherly face of the coffee shop waitress, a fresh cup of coffee in one hand and a piece of paper in another. It was the first time he'd snapped out of his stupor all day and he didn't know whether he was grateful or slightly irritated with the lady for interrupting that.  
"Grande non-fat mocha latte from the gentleman over in the corner. He asked me to pass the message on." She smiled softly and set the cup down in front of Kurt's entwined hands, resting the neatly folded paper on the lid. Nodding his thanks, Kurt waited until the waitress had left before unfolding the paper with trembling, pale fingers, recognising the neat, elegant swirls as he flipped it open.

_'I never knew just what it was about this old coffee shop I love so much. All of the while I never knew. All of the while it was you.'__  
__I'm really sorry. For all of this and for everything I've said/done. I never meant to hurt you and it kills me to know that I have. Forgive me?__  
__B xxx_

Kurt's breath caught in his throat. He didn't dare look over at the corner where the sender of the note resided. Looking at him from across their coffee shop, from the table where they usually sat opposite each other and chatted about anything and everything, seemed like a stupidly painful thing to do, especially when Kurt had been trying so hard to persuade himself to start getting over Blaine. Not that he would ever successfully be able to do. But Blaine had apologised and it was a start. After 5 odd minutes, Kurt managed to pull his eyes up from the note to gaze longingly across the café, only to connect with the back of Blaine's head instead of his eyes, recognising the slicked back curls instantly. He didn't know what to do. Whether to just man up, get over it and go and talk to him. Or just...

"Medium drip from the gentleman over there, sir."  
The waitress settled the cup down, along with a folded napkin next to Blaine's blank notebook, before tidying up his previous empty coffee cups and failed attempts at Shakespearean-like poetry. She didn't seem irritated by the fact she was playing messenger. From the look upon her face, she found it cute and entertaining to say the least. Exchanging coffees and love notes across the café, like in one of those black and white films or a cheesy romance novel.  
Just like the boy across the room, Blaine nodded gratefully before grabbing the napkin, ignoring the welcoming cup of steaming caffeine. The bright red sloping writing was neat, perhaps not as neat as his own, but incredibly familiar.

_'I've seen the paths that your eyes wander down. I want to come too.'__  
__I'm sorry too. I'll stand by you next time, regardless of what path you choose, like any real best friend should.__  
__Forgiven.__  
__K xoxo__  
__PS there's room for one more over here._

Blaine sat there for a little while longer, trying to clear his mind of unnecessary thoughts that just didn't matter any more. Rachel Berry, no more. The past few weeks, gone. And the lingering thought of despair that none of this would ever get fixed... vanished. And suddenly, Blaine felt better than he had in a long time. Kurt was a good kid... a great kid... an amazing friend. And if given the chance to be something more, he'd be more than Blaine could ever wish for. He glanced over at Kurt, eyes tracing the curve of his jaw, his chin, his nose, those long thick eyelashes that nearly touched his perfectly plucked eyebrows... _I think that possibly maybe I'm falling for you..._Why could he only just this now? How could he only just feel the painful ache in his stomach that signified _exactly_ how much he had missed his friend... and longed for him. But it wasn't just in that 'I haven't seen my best friend in a while, I miss him' way but in a 'I've missed the way that your beautiful face brightens my day, regardless of the amount of crap I've been through' way. And god, how it ached. So this was exactly how Kurt felt... and he finally noticed the pain that Kurt must of felt when he had to see Blaine go for Jeremiah, date Rachel and all the while, skip over the one person that could make him happier than all of those people put together. Kurt. How stupid Blaine had been. _No one understands me quite like you do, through all of the shadowy corners of me..._

Kurt didn't look up until the chair opposite him scraped against the floor and heard the creaking of the chair as the figure lowered their weight into it. Suddenly, there was Blaine, dazzling Blaine, and now everything, the whole argument, the whole disaster, seemed a lot less insignificant. A hell of a lot. Everything wasn't 100% fixed but it was a start. And that's all that they needed.  
"Hey," whispered Blaine softly, trademark crooked smile blinding Kurt as he received the full force of that smile.  
"Hello," Kurt muttered in reply, blushing slightly in that adorable way that made Blaine's smile grow bigger. And as they reached out to squeeze one another's hands across the table, they talked and talked and talked until the waitress had to half heartedly shoo them out as the lights were switched off and the OPEN sign swung to reveal CLOSED.

And that was that.


End file.
